As an improvement of a conventional technology (see Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2002-224161 or a pamphlet of International Publication No. 01/89439), the applicant of the present application proposed a disposable absorbent article as explained below (Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-67287; Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2004-275225). As shown in FIG. 5, the absorbent article includes an absorbent mat 3 between a liquid permeable top sheet 1 and a liquid impermeable back sheet 2. In addition, the absorbent article is characterized in that the absorbent mat 3 includes a sheet-like water absorbent layer 5, which contains water absorbent resin powders 4, but does not contain pulp fibers therein, and fiber assembly layers 7A and 7B that include the water absorbent resin powders 4 and the pulp fibers 6, sequentially from a top sheet 1 side, and in that the sheet-like water absorbent layer 5 alternately includes water absorbent resin powder existing regions 5a, in each of which the water absorbent resin powders 4 are wrapped in, and water absorbent resin powder non-existing regions 5b, in each of which the water absorbent resin powders 4 are not wrapped in.
Said disposable absorbent article has the following advantages. The disposable absorbent article has a high absorbing performance that enables long-time use, hardly gets out of shape even after absorbing body fluid, and hardly causes backflow of body fluid so that the disposable absorbent article can make a wearer who wears the article feel comfortable.
Meanwhile, it can be considered that rising flaps 8 may be provided on both sides of the sheet-like water absorbent layer 5, respectively, and that bottom ends 8a of the respective rising flaps 8 are bonded to the top sheet 1 corresponding to water absorbent resin powder existing regions 5a-1 and 5a-2 of the sheet-like water absorbent layer 5 with an adhesive 9 or the like.
However, in each of the water absorbent resin powder existing region 5a, when the water absorbent resin powders 4 repeatedly absorb urine and then being swelled, these swelled water absorbent resin powders 4 may cause the blocking and make the absorption speed lower. Due to this, in the case of the water absorbent resin powder existing regions 5a-1 and 5a-2 are located near the bottom ends 8a of the respective rising flaps 8, when the wearer repeatedly excretes the urine in the decubitus position, the absorption of the urine is blocked by the swelled water absorbent resin powders 4, and the absorbing ability of each of the fiber assembly layers 7A and 7B located near the respective bottom ends 8a cannot be used any more. This disadvantageously results in leakage of the urine.
The present invention has been achieved to solve the above conventional problems. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a disposable absorbent article that can make effective use of an absorbing ability of the fiber assembly layer located near the bottom ends of the rising flaps, and that can ensure preventing leakage of the urine.